


The Cyclist of Violence

by Ginger_Cat



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BAMF John, BAMF Lestrade, Beating, First Kiss, Kidnapping, M/M, Post-His Last Vow, Rape, Rape Recovery, Revenge, Story: The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:47:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2721035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginger_Cat/pseuds/Ginger_Cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John’s first priority is his family; Sherlock knows that. But when John refuses to go with him on a case, Sherlock decides that he can handle it himself—and is terribly, horribly wrong. </p><p>Roughly adapted from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kidnapped

                “Have you gone to the police, Mrs. Smith?”

                Sherlock sat with his fingers steepled under his chin and his eyes barely open. He did not usually deal with kidnappings. Parents with missing children normally went directly to the police first—and either the child would be with a relative, turn out to be a runaway, or come home in a body bag. There was normally never much of a mystery involved, and there was no usual happy alternative when the first two outcomes were not plausible. And the police knew better than he how to handle the third.

                “Yes, I have.” The sniveling woman in front of him wrung a handkerchief in her hands, like it was sopping wet and she needed to get every last drop of water out. She twisted it over and over, her knuckles white from the grip she held on the poor piece of cloth. “I have and they’ve found nothing.”

                “She was not unhappy at home?” John continued. “Would she have cause to run away?”

                “No, no, Violet was perfectly happy,” said Mrs. Smith, wiping her eyes with the corners of the wound-up kerchief. “She wasn’t even living at home, she was at uni.”

 _Ah, so_ , Sherlock thought. _She’s older, then_. “And what do you know about the disappearance?” he cut in, his eyelids snapping up.

                Mrs. Smith sniveled. “She was cycling to her first day of her new nannying job on Friday after her classes; her flatmate saw her leave. But she never showed up at the house. The police haven’t found a thing, not even her bicycle.”

                Sherlock let his hands fall into his lap. “Well, Mrs. Smith, as she went missing on Friday and it is now Wednesday, the odds of your daughter still being alive—“ he heard a “harrumph” from John’s direction and glanced over. John was clearly giving him the _Shut the hell up, you insensitive prat_ look (one with which he was _quite_ familiar); he reluctantly snapped his lips shut.

                Mrs. Smith seemed to not have heard him, though. She suddenly sat up with fervor and stared him directly in the eye. “I’m positive it was the man who was following her!” she exclaimed. “The police don’t believe me, but I know it was him.”

                Sherlock and John both blinked at her. “What man, Mrs. Smith?” John asked.

                “Yes, what man?” Sherlock echoed, touching his fingertips together again.

                “She told me there was a man following her on the way to her interview. On a bicycle, too. She said he was hanging out on the corner of the street where the family lived, and he stared at her as she went by and then followed her all the way to the house. He passed her after she stopped, but she said it was very odd… very _creepy_.”

                Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “Did she describe his appearance?”

                Mrs. Smith sniffed again. “She said she never really looked at him—didn’t want to catch his eye, encourage him, you know—but that he was very small and had a thick, dark beard.”

                Sherlock un-steepled his fingers and stood up. “I’ll take the case,” he said.

                Mrs. Smith blinked at him, surprised, and then hopped up to pull him into a hug. “Oh, thank you, thank you, bless you!”

                Sherlock glanced at John, bewildered by the sudden physical intrusion, and John gave him the _Don’t be a clot, comfort her!_ look. He knew that one, too. “Let’s not get too carried away,” Sherlock told her, awkwardly giving her a pat on the back. “I haven’t found her, yet.”

                Once John had ushered Mrs. Smith out the door, he collapsed on the couch and rubbed his hands over his face. Sherlock ignored him—the baby made him constantly tired, and it was incredibly annoying, but he’d learned not to say anything to John about it. John did not like being tired, either, and his patience with Sherlock was all but nonexistent when he was.

                Instead, Sherlock excitedly paced the room. “The family that Violet nannies for is in on it… or, at least, one of them is. The cyclist waited at the end of the street where they lived, which means he knew where Violet was going, but not which direction she was coming from!” He clapped with joy. “We’ll go to pay them a visit in the morning, and find out which one of them knows.”

                John sighed from the couch. “I can’t go tomorrow.”

                “Nonsense, John, of course you can. We’ll start early, leave the flat around—“

                “Sherlock. I _can’t_ go.” John’s voice was firm.

                Sherlock stopped pacing. “Why ever not?”

                “Because,” said John, “I have to go with Mary to Anna’s doctor appointment.”

                Sherlock became annoyed. “We haven’t had a case in months!” he barked. “Certainly Mary would understand if you came with me instead… and honestly, does the baby even need to go at all? You’re a bloody doctor, why can’t _you_ just examine her?”

                John rolled his eyes. “I’m not a pediatrician, Sherlock. There _are_ different kinds of doctors, you know.”

                Sherlock waved that comment away with one hand in the air and turned to face him head-on. “But _John_ ,” he teased, with a glint in his eye, “it will be _dangerous_.”

                John sighed again from the couch, still slumped down in defeat. “I know, Sherlock,” he said. “And I have a family, now. ‘Dangerous’ is all the more reason why I _shouldn’t_ go.”

                “Ha!,” replied Sherlock, with a smirk. “We’ll see about that.”

***

                John still went to the doctor’s appointment.

                Sherlock was upset, even though he knew he had no right to be. That was one of the rules, now that John was a father; if John’s daughter needed him, at all, for anything, John would be there—she was his first priority. Still, Sherlock didn’t much like going out to interview potential kidnappers by himself…. It wasn’t that he was frightened (he was _never_ frightened), but it was always reassuring to have a familiar face standing next to him. Not mention one that had military training, and a gun.

                Sherlock stepped up to the front door of a large, well-kept home in the middle of a quiet neighborhood just outside of town. The surroundings were friendly enough; _perfect cover for evil doings_ , Sherlock thought, excitedly. He rang the bell.

                A rather tall, rather handsome man opened the door. Sherlock was a little shocked at how good-looking he was, and how well-dressed, and how he smiled at Sherlock shyly through his thick-rimmed glasses. And gay—how _gay_ he was.

                “Can I help you?” asked the man.

                Sherlock cleared his throat. “Are you Mr. Carruthers?”

                “Yes…” said the man, opening the door a little more. “What’s this about?”

                “Do you know a young woman by the name of Violet Smith?” Sherlock watched closely for his reaction.

                Carruthers’ face lit up at the name, and his eyes grew hopeful. “Has there been word from her? Has she been found?”

                “No, no, she hasn’t. I was actually hoping that you could answer a few questions for me about her disappearance.”

                Carruthers eyed him, suspiciously. “Are you a private detective, or something? I’ve already told the police all I know.”

                “As a matter of fact, I am,” Sherlock told him. “Violet’s mother hired me to investigate the disappearance. She seemed to think the police had exhausted all of their resources, to no avail.”

                Mr. Carruthers’ expression showed that he thought so, too. “The police have been rather incompetent, I’ll agree. I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have; what did you say your name was?”

                “Holmes,” said Sherlock. He stuck out his hand. “Sherlock Holmes.”

                “It’s very nice to meet you Mr. Holmes,” said Carruthers, and he gave Sherlock another shy smile when their hands grasped each others’ to shake. “Come in, please, have a seat, and I’ll get my wife to come upstairs. She can help with the questions, too.”

                _Wife?_ Sherlock thought. _Interesting…_

                Sherlock stepped over the threshold and immediately took in his surroundings. Clean, well-kept, minimalistic style, but comfortable. Family photos on the walls. Grandfather clock ticking from the sitting room (old family heirloom, from the sound). Mr. Carruthers showed him to the sitting room and descended a nearby staircase.

                Sherlock immediately began to inspect all of the furniture and trinkets, the magazines, the books on the shelves… _no toys_ , thought Sherlock, quickly making a check of the surrounding rooms to be sure. For a family with a three year-old son, there was a suspicious lack of toys in the house. He knew, from visiting John over the past year, how toys accumulated in a house with children. _All over the place_.

                Carruthers returned a few minutes later to find Sherlock seated on the sofa. His wife was not behind him. “She’s just finishing up a load of laundry, and then she’ll join us,” he said, and moved to sit across from Sherlock. “So,” he started, with a smile, “How can I help?”

                Sherlock cleared his throat and sat up. “My understanding is that Violet was on her way to her first day of nannying for you, but never made it here. So, I was hoping you could tell me a little about your last encounter with her… would that be her interview?”

                Carruthers nodded. “Yes, well… she was nervous, of course, it _was_ an interview.” He smiled. “She didn’t have much nannying experience but there was something… _reassuring_ , about her. She was very nice. A very _sweet_ girl.”

                He licked his lips.

                Sherlock wasn’t usually very good at reading body language, especially _sexual_ body language, but the moment Carruthers licked his lips he felt a chill down his spine; Carruthers, whether he was involved in the kidnapping or not, was definitely sexually attracted to Violet. But he was gay, so why… Sherlock took a deep breath and tried not to smile. This was getting very interesting.

                “What about your son?” Sherlock continued, watching him carefully. “Did the two of them seem to have a connection?”

                “Actually,” Carruthers shifted in his seat, “she hadn’t met Max yet. We never bring him to the interviews, you see—we’re very careful because he gets attached very quickly.” He smiled again. “He’s the most loving, trusting child you’ve ever met. I’m sure he and Violet would have got on splendidly.”

                _Sure they would have_ , _if “Max” existed in the first place_. Sherlock wondered who he and his wife had gotten to pose with them in those photographs. _If he even_ has _a wife_ , Sherlock thought suddenly. Perhaps _she_ was a fabrication, as well. _Enough of this silly dancing about_ , he decided. _It’s time for answers._ After a moment of consideration, he leaned back on the couch and let his knees fall open—just a little.

                Carruthers’ gaze flickered down to Sherlock’s crotch.

                “Mr. Carruthers,” Sherlock said, coolly, and Carruthers’ eyes shot up to his face. “Does your wife know that you’re gay?”

                Carruthers stared, and his jaw went slack. “P-pardon me?”

                “I asked you if your wife knew that you were sexually attracted to men.”

                “I… I’m not… What?”

                Sherlock smirked. “Mr. Carruthers, you are checking me out as we speak.”

                The other man grew pale. “How dare you! You don’t know—“

                Sherlock rolled his eyes. “It’s my _job_ to know,” he sighed, and sat up again. “Let’s try a different question. Why, if you like men, are you sexually attracted to your female, teenage babysitter? That one is certainly puzzling me, at the moment.”

                Suddenly, Carruthers’ eyes grew dark. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Mr. Holmes. I don’t know who you think you are—“

                Sherlock crossed his legs and sat back again. “I’m the world’s only consulting detective,” he said, smugly, “and I’m not going anywhere. Not until you’ve told me the truth—and by that, I mean all of the things you specifically withheld from the police about your relationship with Violet Smith.”

                Carruthers stared at him for a moment, and then his eyes flicked up to something taller behind the couch. Sherlock turned as quickly as he could to find out what that was, but pain suddenly exploded in his head and his vision went black as he lost consciousness.


	2. Shackled

                When Sherlock awoke, it was with a splitting headache and his wrists handcuffed and shackled to a concrete wall.

                He blinked himself awake, turning his head to try to loosen his stiff neck. He felt the crust of dried blood in his hair, from where the person behind him had struck. He looked around, groggily, attempting to get a grasp on his surroundings: concrete room, no windows, one door— _Basement._ Metal table in the center of the room, bolted to the floor, and two matching chairs, pushed into the sides.

                And, oh, a young woman chained to the wall next to him.

                Sherlock studied her; yes, that was definitely Violet. Her hair was matted and dirty, her clothes in the same state—at least, what little she had on. She was wearing a bra on top and a short skirt on the bottom, and her feet were bare.

                “Violet,” Sherlock whispered. He couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep, her long hair was covering her face and her body was hunched over. But, at her name, she sat up and turned one fearful, tear-stained face to him.

                Sherlock’s breath caught. Violet’s left eye was bruised and swollen, and there was dried blood under her nose. There were claw marks on her chest, around her breasts, and large hand-shaped bruises on her arms and hips that he hadn’t noticed before. Some of the bruises were much older than the others. _She’s been raped_ , he realized. _Multiple times._

                “Violet,” he said again, his voice gentler. Violet began to cry. “It’s going to be alright,” he told her, not sure why; he certainly didn’t have control over the situation, and could do nothing at the moment to help her. _I should have brought John with me_ , he thought desperately. _I should have brought someone_ —

                Just then, the door opened and Carruthers stepped through, followed by a short, slight man with a thick, black beard. _The cyclist_ , Sherlock thought.

                “Mr. Holmes,” Carruthers said, smiling a sinister smile. “I do apologize for the blow to the head, but you were quite out of control.”

                “Apology not accepted.”

                Carruthers laughed. “I figured as much. Well, Mr. Holmes, I won’t waste your time; you wanted answers, so I’ll give them to you. I couldn’t before, you see, without us being in the proper… ah… _setting_.” His eyes flickered to the handcuffs. He smiled again and grabbed a chair from the table, dragging it over and placing it in front of Sherlock, then sat and crossed his legs. The man with the beard leaned against the far wall.

                “You asked me if my wife knew that I was gay,” Carruthers began. “She does not… in fact, she knows nothing of any of my… _escapades_.” His eyes danced. “She—“

                “Mr. Carruthers,” Sherlock interrupted, testily, “if you intend to give me _honest_ answers, beginning with a lie is a very poor way to start.”

                Carruthers cocked his head as the man with the beard fidget behind him. “Oh?”

                “Indeed,” Sherlock continued. “The fact is, not only does your wife know that you’re gay, she also knows about every single _one_ of your ‘escapades,’ as you so delicately put them.”

                Carruthers smiled at him. “Hmmm, is that so? And you know this, how?”

                “Because,” Sherlock answered, sticking his nose in the air, “she’s standing right behind you.”

                Carruthers’ smile grew as the man with the beard grabbed it and pulled it completely off his—well, actually, _her_ —face. “How did you _know?_ ” asked Mrs. Carruthers, bewildered.

                Sherlock’s nostrils flared. “I would prefer to give you some complicated explanation of my methods of deduction… but honestly, Mrs. Carruthers?” He laid his head back against the wall and smirked. “You looked like a woman with a fake beard on her face.”

                It was much more subtle than that, actually; he’s spotted the same, unique cowlick on her eyebrow that had been visible in the photographs upstairs—but he relished the opportunity to get some sort of revenge for her whacking him on the head.

                Carruthers laughed again, throwing his head back. “Oh, Mr. Holmes, you _are_ funny. So nice to have a funny one, isn’t it, Teresa?”

                Teresa didn’t respond, obviously upset by the apparent inadequacy of her disguise.

                Carruthers uncrossed his legs, then crossed them the other way. “Alright, detective, why don’t you tell me what you know already, and my darling wife and I will fill in the gaps?” He delicately reached up and took his glasses off his face, then breathed softly on the lenses.

                “You’re bisexual, not gay,” Sherlock began, cross with himself for missing it before. He always missed the bisexual ones. “You’re an exhibitionist, and your wife is a voyeur… Nothing _too_ deviant there, if that’s where you’d stopped,” he continued, coldly. “But you both have a special fetish: to kidnap, rape, and (I suspect) _kill_ your sexual partners.” He couldn’t keep the disgust from his voice. “How _delightful_ for you, that you found each other.”

                Carruthers gazed fondly at him, slowly wiping the lenses of his glasses on a cloth that he’d produced from his rear trouser pocket. “Teresa, we might have to keep this one for a while. He’s incredibly entertaining.”

                Teresa scowled. “Most certainly not. He’s incredibly _annoying_.”

                Sherlock ignored her, still staring at Carruthers. “And I assume the beard is some sort of protection against your wife’s identity when she’s… _viewing_. So you must not kill them all,” he went on, deducing as he talked, “otherwise, it wouldn’t matter.”

                Carruthers nodded. “Yes, and I usually prefer to wear a mask… but no need to, in this case.” He looked down to inspect the cleanliness of his glasses before putting them back on his face. “Killing is quite rare, actually. We only kill the ones that discover who we are.” He winked through the lenses, and Sherlock felt a bolt of fear down his back.

                “Having her cycle after Violet…” Sherlock kept on, trying to ignore the growing terror in his belly. “That must have been an attempt to throw the police off your scent.”

                Teresa growled. “I think we should just kill him,” she interjected, crossing her arms. “Kill him right now.”

                “Not yet, my darling,” Carruthers replied. He stood and studied Sherlock, another smile spreading across his lips.

                “Not before I’ve had my fun.”

                Carruthers’ eyes turned dark, then. _Lustful_ , thought Sherlock. _Devouring_. He felt another quiver of fear in the pit of his stomach, and tried to will it away, but couldn’t. _I shouldn’t have come alone_ , he thought, again. _Why did I come here alone?_

                Violet began to whimper, then, from across the wall. Teresa immediately marched over and struck the side of her head with her fist. “Shut the fuck up!” she spat, as Sherlock barked out a “Don’t!”

                “It’s been a long while since I’ve had a man,” Carruthers murmured gently, ignoring his wife and Violet. He stepped forward and reached a hand out to thread through Sherlock’s curls. “I’m quite picky, you know. I like mine combative, stubborn. I like to break them, you see.” He gripped the top of Sherlock’s hair in his fingers. “What a lovely stroke of luck that _you_ should show up on my doorstep.”

                With that, Carruthers kicked Sherlock in the stomach.

                Sherlock doubled over, the wind completely knocked out of him. In a flash the wife crossed the room to unlock his shackles from the wall. Still incapacitated from the punch, Sherlock felt Carruthers grab the back of his shirt and drag him over to the bolted-down table, slamming his torso on top, chest-first.

                “ _Ugh_ ,” Sherlock grunted, in pain, but his wind was back and he began to struggle. His wrists were still cuffed together, down in front of his body, so that he was lying on his arms. He used his arm strength to push himself back from the table—hoping to bump into Carruthers and throw him off balance—but Carruthers still held fast to his hair and forced his head down on the cold, hard metal, trapping Sherlock’s backside against the table’s edge with his hips.

                Behind them, Violet moaned.

                Sherlock could feel Carruthers’ shoe resting next to his own. He lifted his leg and brought it down with as much force as he could muster, grinding his heel into the top of Carruthers’ foot. Carruthers yelped and retaliated by punching him in the back of the head, right where Teresa had hit him before.

                Sherlock was consumed by pain, his vision white and shimmering. He vomited awkwardly on the table, the side of his face still pinned to it— _Concussion_ , he thought, wildly. He felt Carruthers force a knee between his legs to pry them apart; his wife helped him and then chained each to the legs of the table, spreading them wide. “Hold him down,” ordered Carruthers, his voice suddenly deep and gravelly. Sherlock felt hands change in his hair and realized that Teresa was holding him now; he tested pulling his head up, but he couldn’t budge it, weak and dizzy as he was from the concussion. She was stronger than she looked, too.

                Carruthers’ hands slid under Sherlock’s waist to undo his trousers. He pulled them, and Sherlock’s pants, down just below his arse—as far as they would go, with his legs splayed out like that. Sherlock felt a cold rush of air on his bum, felt the skin prickle with gooseflesh, felt himself begin to tremble. He heard the jingle of a belt and the unmistakable rip of a zip.

                Sherlock wanted to cry out, for “help,” for “no,” for “stop,” or just for a wordless yell against what was happening—but he kept silent. _Won’t give them the satisfaction_. He focused on the door, instead, traced the outline of it with his eyes, wishing he could just get up, open it, _leave_ —

                Carruthers pulled his arse apart with one hand and forced his hard prick inside with the other.

                “ _Arrgh_.” Sherlock involuntarily grunted in pain as he felt Carruthers’ cock squeeze into his body. It was as if he was being split apart, turned inside out; full where he shouldn’t be full, and in terrible, terrible pain. _Skin of the rectum is very thin, and sensitive_ , he recalled. _Easy to bruise, to tear. To bleed._ He had a brief moment of regret that he’d never done this previously, that he’d never experienced the sensation to prepare himself…. But then he reasoned that this act would be completely different in the context of consent. There was nothing that could have prepared him for _this_.

                Sherlock’s eyes began to water as Carruthers pounded into him, over and over, unrelenting. He used every ounce of his willpower to keep from making any sound again, biting down so hard on his tongue that he tasted blood. “How does that feel, darling?” Carruthers cooed, his voice thick and rasped. He ran a hand up Sherlock’s back, under his shirt, and dug his fingernails into the flesh between his shoulder blades. Sherlock sucked in air, sharply, and Carruthers “ _Mmmm’d_ ” contentedly in response, scraping his nails all the way down Sherlock’s spine.

                _Don’t scream, don’t scream, don’t scream, don’t—_

                “I think he likes it,” murmured Teresa, from above his head. She tightened her grip on his hair. “Come on, let’s hear how much you like it.”

                Sherlock breathed loudly and rapidly through his nose; he was unable to get enough oxygen that way, but he couldn’t open his mouth, he couldn’t, or else he would—

                Carruthers suddenly vice-gripped Sherlock’s bollocks.

                “ _Ugh!_ ” he shouted, with the unexpected added pain.

                “That’s it,” Carruthers purred, in an eerily soothing voice. “Let’s hear it, Sherlock.” He squeezed again and thrust his cock into Sherlock’s arsehole more ferociously.

                Sherlock choked out a sob, not caring anymore about holding back his screams; he just wanted it to be over. _Stop. Stop. Please, STOP_. “Stop!” he moaned, his eyes spilling tears down the side of his face, over the bridge of his nose, lubricating the surface of the table against his cheek.

                “Ah, there it is,” Carruthers breathed, his voice like silk.

                “ _Stop!”_ Sherlock sobbed, pathetically, knowing that he wouldn’t, knowing that it was only fuelling Carruthers’ desire, but unable to control himself. “ _Please!”_

                To his surprise, Carruthers obeyed. He stopped moving and dug his fingers into Sherlock’s already-bruised hips. Sherlock felt his entire body shake violently around Carruthers’ hard prick.

                “Not until you say you like it,” Carruthers whispered, and thrust inside Sherlock again with all his strength.

                Sherlock screamed.

                “Say it, darling,” Carruthers murmured, once again stilling himself. “Come on.” He thrust again. “Say you like it.”

                “I—I like it—”

                “Yes, you do,” Carruthers agreed, and pounded him once more. “Say it again.”

                “I like it!”

                “Tell me you want it again.”

                “ _I want it again!”_ Sherlock didn’t recognize his own voice. “ _Again, again!”_ he cried, between heaving sobs.

                “Oh, _fuck_ ,” Carruthers gasped, his thrusts becoming shorter and faster—and then he stilled his body with a wordless groan of pleasure.


	3. Rescued

                _Beep._

                “ _Christ,_ Sherlock, I’ve been calling you for hours—answer your sodding phone!”

***

                _Beep._

                “You fucking _know_ better than this, I don’t know how many times we’ve discussed it—if you go on a case alone, you check _in_ , Sherlock. _You check in_. Even just a _text_ , just send me a fucking text so that I know you’re not… I don’t know… chained up in a basement, somewhere!”

***

                _Beep._

                “If you don’t ring me back in the next hour, I’m calling Scotland Yard—and you can have a bloody nice time explaining to Lestrade why you’re messing with their investigations, _again_. Yeah. So have fun with _that_.”

***

                Mary was watching him from the floor, she and Anna playing with gigantic, brightly-colored puzzle pieces. “John, just calm down.”

                “He always does this!” John seethed, continuing to walk back and forth in front of the hearth, where he’d been pacing for the last hour. “He always bloody does this, doesn’t even think to let me know he’s alright, doesn’t bloody care that other people might _actually_ be concerned for his wellbeing—“

                “John, please. Let’s try to curb the language in front of your daughter, shall we?”

                John growled wordlessly and ran a hand through his hair. He stopped walking and pulled out his mobile, checking it for the thousandth time. “It’s been an hour, Mary.” He looked at her. “A full hour since I left that last message.” He looked back down at his phone again: no calls, no texts. “I’m going out to find him.”

                John started over to grab his coat, when suddenly Mary was standing in front of him with her arms crossed. “You’re not going _anywhere_. If you’re really that worried, then it’s probably _much_ too dangerous for _you_ to go, yeah?”

                “Mary—“

                “Why don’t you just call Lestrade, like you said in your message? The police are much better equipped—“

                “I can’t call Lestrade, because then Sherlock will get into trouble—like, _major_ trouble. He’s on thin ice with them, after last time…“

                Mary set her jaw. “Do you honestly think he’s in danger right now?”

                “I don’t know, Mary,” John sighed. “I just have this feeling, like something is very, very wrong.”

                “Then isn’t it worth it,” she continued, “to risk his getting in trouble with the police, if it would mean saving him?”

                John looked at her and didn’t say anything.

                “John, I know you want to go in all ‘guns a-blazing’ and be the hero, but—“

                “Oh, please,” John scoffed. “I don’t even _remotely—_ “

                “Stop.” Mary held up her hand. “Let me finish. You have other responsibilities, now, to me, to your _daughter_ —what happens if you’re injured or, God forbid, _killed_? What happens to us? I should think that’d be the first thing on your mind. I should think that you’d love us enough to—“

                “Mary,” John sighed again, his expression softening under his guilt, “Mary, of course you and Anna are the first things on mind. Of course you are. I just… I’m just worried. That’s all. I’m really, _really_ worried.”

                “Then call Lestrade,” Mary told him. “Let the police handle it.”

                John stubbornly shook his head.

                “John.” Mary’s voice softened and she put her hands on either side of his face. “We left that life behind, you and I. We can’t go back to it. Not now… not when we have a _family_.”

                John stared at her for a moment, knowing she was right; they _had_ left that life, that danger, behind. They’d had to... he glanced down on the floor, where Anna was stacking puzzle pieces one on top of the other, not understanding how they actually worked. He looked back at Mary and, with reluctance, nodded.

***

                Greg Lestrade hiked up his trousers as he stepped out of the car and onto the quiet, suburban street. The lights that towered over the pavement glowed eerily in the early-morning fog, sending a chill down his back. Lestrade cursed every horror movie he’d ever seen where they’d made fog into such an ominous… erm… _thing_. He crossed the street and went up to the house that Sherlock had supposedly gone to visit the morning before.

                Lestrade checked out the driveway and eyed the windows—car was there, windows were dark. “Probably bloody _sleeping_ ,” he muttered. It was barely light out, and the poor family had been through enough already, answering all of the Yard’s previous questions about Violet’s disappearance. And now he was about to wake them up, for probably no reason at all; Sherlock was most likely long gone, off doing some other reconnaissance, purposely ignoring John’s phone calls just to get him worked up. _The bastard._ But John had seemed nearly out of his mind with worry when he’d rang and woke him up that morning, and Lestrade could do nothing else but promise him he’d help.

                As the Detective Inspector had driven away from his house, grumbling to himself and rubbing his tired eyes, he’d begun to think a little more about the situation. The fact that Sherlock’s first instinct was to investigate the Carruthers started to bring to mind the oddities that Lestrade had noticed when they’d initially interviewed the family. Like, for example, how Violet was supposed to nanny for them, yet their son was nowhere to be seen. “Visiting his grandparents,” they’d said, and Lestrade had bought it—the first time. The second time he’d come to ask questions, the son still wasn’t there—and neither was _Mrs_. Carruthers. “Out shopping,” the husband had said, with an easy smile.

                And then there was the fact that the Carruthers were new to the area, just moved in a month ago—new people were always a red flag when suspicious activities started popping up in previously quiet neighborhoods. A quick check into their address history showed that they had moved eight times in the past three years, and all over the world. When Mr. Carruthers had been questioned about it (on the second visit), he’d let out a sigh and told Lestrade that his sales job was extremely tedious; they kept transferring him around, his company kept restructuring, et cetera.

                The Yard had looked into that, too, but it had checked out. And with the corroborating accounts from neighbors saying that they _had_ seen a little boy around, and that the Carruthers seemed like polite, decent people, Lestrade had dropped the whole thread of inquiry and chalked it all up to coincidence and poor intuition.

                He sighed, now, and lifted his finger to ring the doorbell.

_But… Sherlock doesn’t have poor intuition._

                Lestrade held his finger just a few centimeters away from the bell. Sherlock had come here, absolutely sure that the family knew something about Violet Smith… and Sherlock was almost never wrong. And whether it was that fact, or his previous suspicions, or the glowing fog around the streetlights, the Detective Inspector lowered his hand and considered a second option.

                Lestrade had picked a lot of locks as a young lad. He’d grown up in a fairly small town, and he and his mates would often break into their friends’ houses or local storefronts and such and pull pranks on the residents. He’d had his fair share of peer pressure, wanted to be the “bad boy” and all that, but honestly… he did it because his father would fly into a red-eyed rage when he got caught. And there was nothing he loved more than pissing off that no-good, stick-up-the-arse wanker.

                So he became quite experienced in the art of breaking and entering, though lucky for him he’d never actually been _charged_ with that crime. Scolded, threatened, grounded, but never legally charged. If he had, he’d probably have gotten worse, become a criminal. He’d be milling about in some prison cell right now, certainly _not_ Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard. Lucky for him, he’d gotten away with all of it and grown out of that rebellious phase, straightened up, left all that behind—

                _Click._ The lock turned and Lestrade’s mouth curved into a half-smirk. “Still got it,” he murmured, as he gently pushed his way through the door.

                The house looked different in the early-dawn light, but still familiar—Lestrade recognized all of the photographs and furniture from his last visit, only two days before. He stepped slowly along the hardwood floor, looking in every room, trying not to make any noise.

                _Thump._

                Lestrade froze as he heard a door _thump_ closed, somewhere… below him? It had made the glass rattle in the picture frames. He crept further down the hallway and stopped at a door to his right, which was slightly ajar. His heart pounded in his chest as he reached a hand inside his jacket to grab his gun, then the handle of the door. He steeled his nerves and flung it open.

                _Stairs_.

                Lestrade blinked into the darkness, his eyes adjusting a bit more: through the door there was a staircase, all the way straight down about ten steps, and at the bottom, another door. The other door was gigantic—industrial-sized, like that of a walk-in freezer—and Lestrade felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He descended carefully, his gun still drawn and in front of him, his eyes wide, trying to take in as much light as they could. He reached the bottom step, his heart nearly beating out of his chest. He grabbed the handle, turned it slowly and quietly… _It’s unlocked_.

                Lestrade planted his feet and pushed his full weight forward, swinging the door open. Bright light hit his face, momentarily blinding him; he lifted an arm to shield it. And then, his eyes focused.

                He had but a split second to take in the scene in front of him—two people ( _the Carruthers_ ) standing next to a table, a half-naked girl bent over it, covered in bruises—before Teresa Carruthers snarled and drew a sharp knife from her pocket. She advanced toward him, ready to pounce—she sprang—she leapt—

                Lestrade aimed his gun and blew a hole straight through her head without a second thought. Bits of bone and brains exploded out the back of her, peppering the concrete floor, and her body slumped to the ground as blood seeped from the wound in her skull. Lestrade then swung the weapon around to point it at Carruthers, who promptly raised his arms in the air, his lip curled. “ _Down on the ground!_ ” Lestrade bellowed, his voice shaking with adrenaline. “ _NOW!”_ Carruthers knelt down slowly, his eyes fixed on the barrel of the pistol.

                As Carruthers knelt, Lestrade caught a glimpse of a curly head behind him—and his mouth fell open.

                “ _Sherlock_ ,” he breathed.

                He was bloody, bruised, disheveled, hands chained to the wall, in as close to a fetal position as he could get. His eyes were watching Lestrade, piercing him, searching rapidly, as if only daring to believe what they were seeing. They filled with tears.

                “ _Greg_ ,” Sherlock whispered back.


	4. Examined

                John pounced on his phone as soon as it rang. “Greg?”

                “John.”

                “What’s up? Did you find him?”

                “Hey, yeah, I… yeah.” Lestrade’s voice sounded thin, stressed.

                “Well? He’s alright, then?”

                “He’s… alive.”

                John felt a surge of fear, followed by confusion, followed by anger. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? What happened?”

                “I don’t exactly know…. He won’t talk to anyone, won’t let anyone touch him. John, I… I think you’d better get down here.”

                John's heart thudded to a stop. “I—okay,” he said. “Okay. I—I’ll be right there. Text me the address, will you?”

                “I will. And John?”

                “Yeah?”

                “Erm… have you got like, a ‘doctor’s kit’ or something? You know, for making house calls?”

                John furrowed his brow at the phone. “Yes…”

                He heard Lestrade take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

                “Bring it.”

***

                John didn’t bother with a cab—he took the car instead, drove like a madman out of the city. The faster he got to Sherlock, the faster he could help him, and the less time his imagination would have to run wild with thoughts of what might have happened or what he would find. _My medical bag_ , thought John with a sickening lurch of his stomach. He glanced at it, on the floor next to him. _Why did he want me to bring my medical bag?_

                Despite what Sherlock thought, John was not an idiot. He could put the pieces together in his head, same as anyone else: Sherlock had gone to investigate a kidnapping. He hadn’t answered his phone. Lestrade had found him, nearly a day later, still at the Carruthers’ house. Alive. (Not alive and _well_. Just ‘alive.’)

 _Torture_ , John thought, clenching his jaw as he pulled up to the curb. _Some sort of torture_. The little street was packed with police cars, ambulances, news crews, the like. John grabbed his bag and flung open the door, not bothering to shut it as he rushed toward the scene. _Some sort of torture that he won’t let the paramedics treat_. John waded through the press, the police, the EMTs. _Something he’s… embarrassed of?_ John stopped and looked around. _What would Sherlock be embarrassed of?_ He saw Lestrade. “Greg!” shouted John, trotting forward to meet him.

                Lestrade’s eyes were tired, haunted. His entire face sagged, as if under the weight of some terrible grief.

                “Where is he?” John inquired, out of breath.

                Lestrade blinked at him for a second. “Follow me.”

                They walked up the pavement and into the house, past hordes of police—forensic specialists, detectives, guards—crawling across every surface of the Carruthers’ home. Lestrade pushed past them and John followed, tight lipped, behind. They made it through to the back door, and to John’s surprise, Lestrade opened it and stepped through.

                “Where…”

                “He’s in the house next door,” Lestrade explained. “He didn’t… he didn’t want the press to know he was here. So we took him out back, around to the neighbor’s.”

                It was dark inside the other house, and much quieter, although there were still several people scuttling about. All of the shades were drawn, all of the lights off. “This way,” Lestrade called, and John followed him around the corner and down a long hallway. There was a group of police at the end, and a familiar female face—

                “Oi, Donovan,” Lestrade called, and she looked up.

                “Hey boss.”

                “Any luck?” From the tone of his voice, he didn’t expect a positive answer.

                Donovan shook her head. “No, ‘fraid not.” She looked at John. “It’s a damn good thing you’re here,” she said. “We’ll need you to help us get his statement.”

                John stared at her. “What?”

                “A statement, you know… his account of what _happened_ ,” she explained, annoyed.

                He turned to Lestrade. “He hasn’t said anything?”

                “No, I told you, John. He won’t talk to anyone.”

                John searched his face. “What happened, Greg? Where did you find him?”

                Lestrade and Donovan exchanged glances. “In the basement,” he said, reluctantly. “They had this room—“

                “Greg!” Donovan interjected, wide-eyed. “You can’t tell him, you could compromise the investigation—“

                “Oh, sod off,” John spat at her, and turned back. “You were saying.”

                Lestrade sighed heavily and continued. “They had this room…” Donovan fumed at him and marched down the hallway, muttering obscenities under her breath. “It was like some sort of torture chamber. I dunno…” He ran a hand through his hair. “When I went in, Sherlock was chained to the wall. He…” Lestrade’s eyes had a faraway look. “He called me ‘Greg.’”

                John felt his lungs tighten. “And he didn’t say what had happened?”

                “No,” Lestrade answered, quietly. “No, but I can guess.”

                John raised his eyebrows.

                “I think it’s probably better if you just go to him, John. I don’t want to…. I don’t know anything, for sure. Don’t want to assume.”

                “Greg—“

                “He’s just through here.” The Detective Inspector abruptly walked past him again and went up to a half-open door. John followed, frustrated.

                “Mr. Holmes, I know this is difficult.” A woman’s voice floated through the crack. “But we need your help—“

                Lestrade knocked a couple of times and pushed in the rest of the way in, into what appeared to be a large bathroom.

                Sherlock was sitting on the ground, his back to the wall, his face on his knees and his arms folded over the back of his head. There was a woman sitting on the edge of the bathtub across from him, dressed in a tan suit, and another police officer standing behind her with a notebook open and pen poised to write. The woman turned to look at them as they entered, and got up off the tub. “It’s not a good time,” she told them, attempting to usher them back out. “I need a moment to—“

                “Who the fuck are you?” John interrupted, looking her up and down. She and the police officer both blinked at him, and Sherlock lifted an eye from his knees.

                “Excuse me?”

                “I asked you who the fuck you were.”

                The woman grasped the bottom of her suit jacket and tugged expertly. “I’m aiding the police with Mr. Holmes’ statement,” she told him. “Who are _you_?”

                “That’s John Watson.” All eyes turned to Sherlock as he lifted his head all the way off his knees.

                John’s breath caught as he took in the sight. It wasn’t just that he was banged up; yes, his lip was split and puffy and his entire left cheekbone was rubbed raw; yes, there was a stain of blood down the side of his neck and over the front of his shirt; yes, his complexion was sickly pale and the skin under his eyes impossibly dark; but the expression he wore, the way he looked at John with utter terror and exhaustion mixed, the way his shoulders stooped and his hands began to clench together, his long fingers wrapping around one another, squeezing—

                “Your _face_ ,” gasped John, weakly, stupidly, _stupid_ , the split lip and bloody cheek were clearly the least of it.

                “Tell them to go, John,” Sherlock pleaded softly. “Tell them I don’t want to give a statement.”

                The woman in the suit became indignant. “Mr. Holmes—“ she began.

                “Get out,” John commanded, his eyes not leaving Sherlock’s face.

                “But—“

                “Didn’t you hear him?” He rounded on her. “He doesn’t want to give a bloody _statement_. He doesn’t want to bloody _talk_ to you. So get the fuck _OUT_!”

                The woman looked wide-eyed to Lestrade, but he just shrugged. “Come on,” she snapped at the other police officer, and the two of them marched out of the room.

                When they were gone, Lestrade cleared his throat. “Let me know if you… erm… need me,” he offered, half-heartedly, and turned to leave as well.

                As soon as the door was closed, John let out the breath he’d been holding. “What happened?” he asked, quietly.

                Sherlock studied his fingers, intertwined together. He shook his head.

                “Sherlock, look at me.” John squatted in front of him, and Sherlock reluctantly met his gaze. “You’re _safe_ now.” Sherlock’s eyes began to tear, but he didn’t look away. John felt an iron fist clench his heart. “You’re safe. I’m here.”

                Sherlock’s lips began to tremble.

                John fought to control the emotion roiling inside of him. He needed to be patient, but it was becoming increasingly difficult... _What the fuck happened?_ “You can tell me, Sherlock. You can tell me. It’s okay.”

                Sherlock stayed silent, but his eyes shifted over to John’s medical bag.

                “Lestrade told me you wouldn’t let the paramedics treat you,” John explained, quietly. “I understand if you don’t want them to…” His voice wavered. “Look, Sherlock, I know you. I know you would tell someone if you needed medical attention. That’s why I brought my things, just in case.” John gently pushed his bag forward, and Sherlock continued to watch it. “So I’m only going to ask you once… Do you need me to examine you?”

                Sherlock kept his eyes fixed on the bag. He nodded.

                “Okay.” John let out a breath of relief. At least they were getting somewhere. “Can you stand up, for me?” He stood himself, and reached out with his open palms to help Sherlock along.

                Sherlock sat up, took a few deep breaths, then lifted his hands into John’s. John caught a glimpse of the deep ligature wounds on his wrists as his shirtsleeves slid back. _Fuck_ , he thought.

                Sherlock stood, slowly, his face white as a sheet. He closed his eyes for several seconds, then opened them. “Okay,” he whispered.

                “Okay,” John echoed, letting go of his hands to reach into his bag and extract a pair of gloves. “Show me where it hurts.”

                John’s heart thumped wildly as Sherlock undid button after button, as shrugged the garment off his shoulders with a wince of pain— _Bruises. Bruises everywhere_. On his chest, on his abdomen, his arms, his waist; he’d been beaten, and badly. The blood from his head wound had dried down the front of shoulder, in his chest hair, bits of brown crust crumbling away. John crept up to his body and began to walk around him, taking in every blemish, every mark of violence on his porcelain-white skin.

                And then he got to his back.

                Claw marks, all the way from his shoulder to his tailbone, down the full length of his spine. “ _Jesus_ ,” John exhaled, unable to stop himself. Sherlock’s breath quickened, his torso expanding and contracting rapidly as John’s eyes moved down to—

                John could barely see them, poking out above his trousers, but there were two distinct thumb-shaped contusions on his hips. He absentmindedly reached out and let a gloved finger graze the one on the right—and then felt his jaw go slack as all the pieces came rushing together.

                A nineteen year-old woman was kidnapped. No family drama, no ransom requested. _What is the_ _most likely reason,_ John thought to himself, _that someone would kidnap a young woman for nothing in return?_

                _Rape._

                John felt the room spin for a moment. His face grew cold, and then blisteringly hot. Violet was raped. Of course she was. _How did we miss that?_ How had it never crossed either of their minds, when they took the case, that they might be dealing with a rapist?

                Sherlock flinched as John’s outstretched hand brushed his purpled skin. “Oh my God,” John whispered hollowly, forgetting all his bedside manner. Sherlock was trembling violently, his breath shivering on each inhale and exhale. “Oh my God—“

                Suddenly, Sherlock turned and flung himself over the toilet, retching loudly. John blinked, taken aback, then went to him. “It’s alright,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It’s alright, it’s—“ Sherlock retched again. John put his hands tenderly on his back, in what he hoped was a reassuring way. It was all he could do at the moment; he was in shock.

                After a few moments, Sherlock’s breathing slowed. He righted himself and turned around. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he croaked. “Not to you, not to the police, not to anyone. Ever.”

                John knew he should be feeling pity, sympathy, heartbreak—but all he felt was a mind-numbing loathing, for the people who had done this. And guilt. That too. _I should have been there,_ John thought bitterly _. I shouldn’t have let him go alone_.

                John nodded, accepting Sherlock’s terms: he wouldn’t ask him what happened, wouldn’t make him talk to the police. He was going to protect him, now. He drew himself up. “Would you still like me to examine you?”

                It was Sherlock’s turn to nod.

                _Where to start?_ Sherlock had been beaten, so internal bleeding was the first thing he should rule out. John reached out his hand and gently pressed a bruise on Sherlock’s ribcage. Sherlock immediately went stiff, and he let out a hiss. “Scale of one to ten,” John said, quietly. “Tell me how much it hurts.”

                “S-six,” Sherlock stammered.

                John felt around his whole body, all of the bruises, examined the cuts on his wrists and back, cleaned them with antiseptic. He looked at the head-wound, did a few cognitive tests. With each additional injury he treated, he felt an additional surge of rage.

                Once he was done with the torso, John stepped back. “Sherlock, I… I’m sorry, but I really should look…”

                “I know,” Sherlock interrupted, and sluggishly began to undo his trousers.

                Of all the times John thought he might have seen Sherlock naked, this particular scenario had never crossed his mind. If it had been any other time, John would have taken a moment to admire his body; as a doctor, John had seen many naked bodies, of all shapes and sizes, so he felt he was pretty qualified to judge Sherlock’s as one of the most beautiful he’d ever come across. Slender, but not skinny—his arse and thighs were firm and strong—skin cream-colored and smooth all the way down his graceful legs. His cock was a nice size, too ( _Is that weird?_ John thought suddenly. _Is it weird for me to think that?_ ), slightly larger than average, resting in a dark, curly tuft of hair. It was so different from John’s bottom half, which was riddled with random patches of dark blond hair, everything about him wide and stocky, from his bum to his legs to his cock, which was just barely average in length but quite generous in girth. He would not call his own body “beautiful,” not in the least. But Sherlock’s was.

                Or would have been, had it not been marred by black-and-blue splotches.

                It fueled his anger, that the Carruthers had done this to such a lovely thing. He supposed that’s what they got off on, though. What a thrill they must have had when they’d pulled down his trousers…

                John’s blood boiled.

                He examined the bruises, tight-lipped and silent, Sherlock rattling off numbers on his scale of pain—“three, four, _seven_.” And when that was finished, John closed his eyes.

                “Sherlock,” he said, carefully. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I do have to ask you… did they… insert anything?” He tried to make it sound as delicate as possible. “Well, besides….

                “Besides a penis?”

                John cringed. It was almost laughable, how absurd this whole thing was. That people were capable of doing this to each other. That, in turn, John and Sherlock had to have this conversation. “Yeah.”

                Sherlock was quiet for a moment. “Yes.”

                John took a breath to steady himself. “Okay. Was it… could it have pierced your skin?”

                Sherlock swallowed. “It was a screwdriver. The handle.” His breathing sped up again. “He thought… he said he liked the _poetry_ of it. ‘Screwed by a screwdriver.’”

                John’s world spun. “Sherlock,” he murmured. “I have to… I have to feel inside. There could be internal damage.” He shook his head. “Honestly, you’d be better off in a hospital. They have special equipment, painkillers, things I don’t have…”

                “No,” Sherlock said. “No, I don’t want anyone else to… no. Please.”

                John tried again. “I’m not going to lie to you. This is going to hurt. You’re probably very swollen and… it’s going to be painful.”

                Sherlock turned around. “I know, John,” he said, quietly. “He… Carruthers…” Sherlock’s body began to tremble, again. “He did it twice. The second time was with the screwdriver, four hours later, after they’d beaten me.”

                John felt as if he might be sick.

                “So whatever you’re going to do... it cannot be worse than that.”

                After searching the bathroom, John ended up giving him a rolled-up hand towel to bite down on. Sherlock stared at it for a moment, then took it, wordlessly. “You’ll have to lean over,” John said, “over the sink would be best…” Sherlock stepped up to it and did as he was told, resting his elbows on the countertop. After a moment’s pause, he put the towel in his mouth.

                John went round the back of him and saw that his muscles were shaking. “Please try to relax,” he said, and put a hand on his bum to reassure him. Sherlock nodded but didn’t do it.

                John slicked two of his gloved fingers with petroleum jelly and used his dry hand to hold Sherlock’s cheeks apart. It was already awful, there was blood dried up the entire crack, everything was red and raw and incredibly swollen. For a moment, John didn’t think he could do it. He knew it was going to hurt, badly, and he knew that a manual examination was not going to be very productive anyway. Sherlock should go to the hospital, he really, really should. _Still_ , John thought, _if he won’t go, this is better than nothing._

                John took a deep breath and inserted a finger.

                Despite knowing it would hurt, John was wholly unprepared for Sherlock’s reaction: his whole body spasmed and he moaned into the towel. “ _Fuck_ ,” John heard him cry, through the fabric.

                “Shhh, it’s alright,” John said to him, trying to sound soothing, but feeling as if he wasn’t anywhere near it. Sherlock choked out another sob. “Do you want me to stop?” John made as if to pull his finger out.

                “No,” Sherlock took the towel out and gasped from the counter. “No. Just do it. Just do it and ignore me, please.” He put the towel back and gripped the tap in his hands, anchoring himself to it.

                The exam was the most difficult thing John had ever done. Not the medicine of it, of course, but the emotion…. Not even all those poor lads he’d stitched up in the war, their blood spilling out and them screaming for their mothers, made his heart break the way Sherlock’s sobs did. John cried too, unable to stop himself, as he felt around for serious injuries. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” he chanted through his tears.

                Luckily, John didn’t find anything too worrisome. After he finished the examination, he helped Sherlock to dress again, to pull up his trousers and button his shirt; Sherlock’s hands were shaking too much to do it himself. John didn’t meet his eyes the entire time—he couldn’t. He knew if he did, he would cry again… and crying, at this point, would serve no purpose other than to make Sherlock feel bad for him.

                Sherlock felt plenty bad enough.

***

                Lestrade was resting against the wall, his hands in his pockets, staring down at the grain of the wooden floor. He’d been looking at the lines for a while now, following as they broke out from each other and then connected again. He wished the whole floor was one continuous grain of wood, and that he could watch it for hours, and push the events of the last day from his mind.

                He waited outside the bathroom for close to thirty minutes before he heard the door open again. He looked up and saw John come out, closing the door behind him.

                Lestrade’s heart sank; John’s face confirmed everything he thought had happened. “How is he?” he asked, tentatively.

                John looked at him, his eyes suddenly dark. “Please tell me you put a bullet in each of their brains.”

                Lestrade blinked and opened his mouth. “The—the woman, I killed her. She came at me with a knife.” He paused. “The man, Carruthers, he surrendered. So I arrested him.”

                “You should have shot him, too.”

                Lestrade looked back at the lines in the floor. “John, I…”

                “It doesn’t matter.” John waved it away. “Where is he now?”

                “I… he’s at the Yard. Waiting for interrogation.”

                John looked at him for a moment. “I want to be there.”

                “Be… where?”

                “At the Yard, when you interrogate him.”

                Lestrade furrowed his brow. “Why?”

                “Because,” John said, his body perfectly still, his voice eerily calm. “I want to ask him a question.”


	5. Haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know much about the legal system, so I apologize if some of the conclusions in the following chapters are unrealistic or just plain wrong! At this point I'm writing for entertainment, not realism... hopefully you can forgive me :)

                The silence was excruciating.

                To a man who had previously no trouble at all sitting for long hours, alone, in the dead of night, letting his mind off its leash, the fact that silence was now his enemy put him at odds with everything he knew himself to be. It was truly frightening, in a way that Sherlock had not known existed.

                He asked John to turn on the radio during the ride back to Baker Street. John had hesitated, but complied without question— _well_ , thought Sherlock, _if you don’t count “AM or FM?” as a question._

                He knew what was going through John’s head: _He’s never asked for the radio, before. He hates the radio. Absolutely loathes it._ Sherlock didn’t respond to those unasked questions. John had been tortured enough without having to listen to Sherlock tell him the reason: All he heard in the silence were his screams. And Violet’s screams. And Carruthers’ sickly smooth voice murmuring wicked things into his ear. And the thud of his body against the table—the rattle of the chains on his ankles—the—

                “Can you turn it up?” Sherlock asked.

                He realized that the worst thing about rape was not the actual act itself. Not to say that it had not been unfathomably painful… but it was not a one-off sort of pain. It was the kind of pain that kept on feeding off itself, spreading to different parts—physical, mental, emotional— shifting, adapting to all of his combat techniques. The loud radio was working, right now, but that would change. Soon, the memories would find a way back in.

_What if I can’t stop thinking about it? What if I’m afraid to go on another case, because of it? Afraid to trust my own judgment, my own intuition? I never suspected Carruthers was capable of something like that… What if I can’t get it right, anymore? What if I can’t solve crimes, anymore?_

                “Just turn it off,” Sherlock shouted.

                Back to silence. The thud of Carruthers’ foot into his side. The ringing in his ears after—

                “Talk to me,” Sherlock whispered.

                John glanced over from the driver’s seat. “What about?”

                “Anything.”

                So John told him about Anna’s doctor appointment. He told him about all her new words. Told him about the walk they had in the park, she’d stepped in dog shit and he’d wiped it off her shoe with a tissue, his face scrunching up and him giving a great big “Yuck!” that caused Anna to belly-laugh for the first time ever, and he just kept saying it over and over, and she kept laughing, and he didn’t want to stop. About his fight with Mary over visiting Harry again; he didn’t want to do it, but Mary thought they should give her another chance.

                Suddenly, they were back at 221B.

                John helped Sherlock upstairs and onto the couch, where he gingerly sat and closed his eyes, taking heavy breaths against the pain. When he opened them again, John was in the kitchen making tea. Sherlock sat and watched him, thinking how nice it was to have him here, what a rarity it had been the past year, how he didn’t think he could bear it if John ever left again.

                John brought him a cuppa and told him to drink. “For your throat,” he said, in his doctorly voice.

                “Thank you.” Sherlock sipped the tea through his split lip.

                John stared at him for another moment, watching him drink. “You should try to get some sleep,” he suggested, quietly.

                Sherlock looked up over the steam that was wafting from his cup. He nodded. “But please don’t leave,” he whispered.

                He saw John’s eyes blink back tears. “I won’t, Sherlock. Of course I won’t.”

                Sherlock set his tea on the coffee table and carefully lay down on the sofa, and John lifted the blanket from the back of his old chair to spread it over him. “Let me get your shoes,” he said, and knelt down.

                Sherlock watched him concentrate on the laces far more than he needed to. “John, I... I’m sorry.”

                John looked up, sharply. “No,” he said, gruffly, removing the first shoe. “No, you don’t—you should never be sorry. None of this is your fault.”

                “I was foolish,” Sherlock muttered. “I shouldn’t have gone alone. I should have realized what… I was foolish. I wanted to prove to myself that I could… that I didn’t need you, anymore.”

                John fumbled with the second shoe.

                “But that’s clearly not true.”

                John paused from his task to wipe the tears that had slid down the bridge of his nose. “I shouldn’t have let you go, Sherlock. It was my fault, for going to that stupid appointment—for making you feel like you had to be… that you had to do it alone…” he shook his head and finally tugged off the shoe.

                “Oh _please_ , John,” Sherlock replied, “you are not responsible for my wellbeing. I _am_ an adult, you know. Though I don’t always act it.” He attempted a smile.

                John looked up again, his eyes disbelieving. “Of _course_ I’m responsible,” he said. “I love you, Sherlock. That’s what love _means_.”

                He reached down and pulled the blanket over Sherlock’s toes.

***

                “Violet’s dead.”

                John was standing in the hallway, on the phone with Lestrade, keeping an eye on Sherlock’s sleeping form. “Jesus,” he exhaled. “What happened?”

                “We’re not exactly sure, at this point. She was alive and awake when I found her… not sure if she had internal injuries, or…”

                “Or what?”

                “Well, the unofficial diagnosis is that she killed herself. You know, she was there for nearly a week in that basement—raped, beaten, starved too, probably—if that doesn’t fuck with your mind, I don’t know…”

                John was quiet, staring at Sherlock again.

                “Look, if she died of her injuries, we could firmly add ‘murder’ to Carruthers’ list of crimes, which would help his chances of conviction. But if she didn’t… John, we _need_ a statement. Now that Violet’s dead, Sherlock is the only one who can give that to us—“

                “Wait, hold up.” John cut him off. “Are you saying Violet didn’t give a statement?”

                “Her injuries were pretty bad, John. I mean, she was awake when I got there, but she wasn’t coherent. She’d been at the hospital all day, trying to recover to the point where she could give us a lucid account of what happened; but now she’s dead, and all we have is speculation. We’ll have her autopsy, too, and evidence of Carruthers’… erm… _semen_ , inside her… but if she killed herself, we can’t get him for murder. We can try to make a rape case based on the injuries she sustained, but a good legal team might be able to prove it was consensual.”

                “ _Consensual?_ ” John hissed. “Who the fuck in their right mind would think—“

                “Nobody’s said it _wasn’t,_ John! We don’t have statements from Sherlock or Violet saying that they were kidnapped and raped. We don’t have shite, if Violet’s death turns out to be suicide!”

                John was silent.

                “John. We need Sherlock’s statement. We need him to testify, to say—“

                “No.”

                Lestrade sighed, loudly, into the phone. “What the hell is wrong with you? If Sherlock doesn’t help us, Carruthers could _walk_ —“

                “When are you interrogating him?”

                Lestrade paused. “What?”

                “I told you, I want to be there. When is it?”

                “John, I don’t… look, I know you’re upset, and—“

                “Do you know what I had to do today?” John interrupted. “I mean, besides examine my best friend’s arsehole for serious internal damage?” His voice was shaking. “I had to sit next to him, here, at his flat, and talk to him for two hours straight before he finally fell asleep. _Two fucking hours_. He can’t abide the silence, Greg. He can’t. I finally got it out of him—says all he can hear is the screaming.”

                Lestrade didn’t reply.

                “He asked me not to leave. Practically pleaded. You should have seen the fear in his eyes… he’s so bloody frightened, and he’s in pain…. This is not Sherlock Holmes.” John felt himself choke up. “And honestly? I don’t know if he’ll ever be Sherlock Holmes again.”

                The Detective Inspector sat in stony silence on the other end.

                “I don’t care about statements, Greg. I don’t care about speculation, I don’t care about testimonies.” John turned and pushed himself into the corner of the wall to muffle his voice, his mouth brushing the edge of the phone as he spoke. “Do you know how many lives Sherlock has saved? Do you know how many crimes he’s stopped, and how many more he’s prevented?” John didn’t wait for a response. “Neither do I, because there are too goddamn many to count.

                “Carruthers didn’t just ruin Sherlock’s life, which is bloody bad enough, or the life of Violet Smith. He insured that thousands of crimes would be committed in this city, thousands of lives would be lost, because he _broke_ Sherlock Holmes. So I don’t care about _anything_ , save for making sure he pays for what he’s done.”

                Lestrade’s voice was small when he finally spoke. “What are you going to do?”

                “I told you,” John said, coolly, “I’m going to ask him a question.”

                “So, you want to be in the room with him.”

                John nodded at the phone, then realized Lestrade couldn’t see him. “Yes.”

                “There are cameras, in that room.”

                John was quiet for a long moment. “Cameras can be switched off.”

                “John.”

                “Greg, I’m just saying they can be. I’m not asking you to do it. I’m not asking you to do anything except to get me in that room so that I can… _ask_ my question.”

                “And how am I supposed to convince everyone else that you should be in there?” Lestrade’s voice was angry, all of a sudden. “You’re not a police officer, you’re not a lawyer. You’re not a—“

                “You’ve made allowances for us, before.”

                “This is different.”

                Both men were quiet for a moment. John turned around and thumped his head against the wall, softly, looking back across the flat at Sherlock, whose breath was making his chest rise and fall under the blanket.

                “You were right.” Lestrade’s voice was hollow, suddenly changed. “I should have shot the bastard when I had the chance.”

                John gritted his teeth. “Get me in there, Greg. I don’t care how you do it. Just get me in there.”

                Lestrade sighed. “Okay.”


	6. Revenged

                Lestrade checked the clock in the break room as he poured himself a tall cup of coffee. Three-fifty-eight. _Almost time._ He picked up his cup and took a sip, then walked back down the hallway and around the corner to the door of the observation room. He took a deep breath, and entered.

                The room itself was dark, had to be—their one-way mirrors weren’t the best quality. The interrogation room, however, was lit from the inside, a row of pink-tinged fluorescents illuminating the small metal table and two chairs, one of which had a disheveled-looking Mr. Carruthers handcuffed in it.

                _The man looks bored_ , Lestrade thought. _And cocky_. Like he knew the situation was only temporary. Like he knew he’d get out, go back to his heinous ways. _You can almost see him thinking it,_ Lestrade noticed. _Bloody psychopath._

                Suddenly, the fire alarm blared out an eardrum-hemorrhaging shriek, making Lestrade and Carruthers both cringe. Lestrade pressed a finger to the microphone. “You sit tight; I’ll come round to extract you in a moment.”

                The fire alarm meant that the first part of the plan had worked: that John had gotten in the back door, behind the dumpsters, in which Lestrade had stuck a coin to keep it slightly ajar. Now, hopefully, he was making his way to the evidence room (“Code is 55925,” Lestrade had told him. “Go to the back wall, pick any one of them. Just wipe it, after.”) to get a gun (“Don’t use your own, they can trace the bullet.”) and coming back down the empty hall, unseen by either real people or by the cameras—because the Detective Inspector had conveniently switched them off.

                “Still got it,” Lestrade murmured, taking another sip of his coffee.

                He heard then a quiet knock and put down the cup to open the door. John appeared from behind it and gave Lestrade a slight nod as he entered, gun in hand. Lestrade nodded back and peered out the door and into the deserted hallway before he closed it again, locking it from the inside. He turned back around to—

_WHAM!_

                The door between the observation and interrogation rooms slammed closed, and Lestrade blinked in surprise as he watched John grab the empty metal chair and swing it over to jam it underneath the handle.

                “John!” Lestrade yelped, running to try the handle—which was indeed stuck. Lestrade grabbed it and threw the side of his body into the door, trying to force it open. It didn’t budge.

                “What the fuck?” Carruthers exclaimed, standing up with his hands still cuffed together.

                John spun and pointed the gun at his head. He took a good look at the tall, handsome man in front of him. “Disarming,” he said, just barely above the alarm.

                “What?” Carruthers asked, confused.

                “It’s disarming,” John’s voice rose, “how innocent you look. That probably worked to your advantage, didn’t it?”

                Carruthers’ puzzled expression turned to one of contempt. “I’ve already told the police I won’t talk to anyone without my lawyer.”

                John cocked the gun. “I’m not the police.”

                A hint of fear crossed Carruthers’ expression. “Look, mate,” he started, lifting his hands up palms-first in a gesture of supplication. “You’ve got the wrong idea. Whatever you think I did, I—“

                “Oh, I know what you did,” John interrupted, his voice rumbling low. And then, he lowered his gun, just slightly, and pulled the trigger.

                “ _Aaaarraaaghh!”_ Carruthers screamed, as blood and bone exploded from his kneecap. He fell to the ground, sobbing and cradling his leg. John didn’t hesitate as he shifted his arm and shot the other knee, too, and Carruthers screamed louder, his head thrown back and then forward again, arching and writhing in pain. “What the fuck!” he shrieked, spittle flying from his mouth. “What the _fuck!_ ”

                Lestrade, meanwhile, had continued to fail at opening the door. “John, what the hell are you doing?” he yelled into the microphone. “Just kill the bastard and let’s go!”

                John ignored him, instead advancing toward Carruthers, his gun still at attention, looking for all the world like a raging bull. He stepped up to Carruthers’ side and kicked him, hard. Carruthers shouted in pain—John used the distraction to grab his cuffed hands and drag him over to the table. He pulled out a second pair of handcuffs from his back pocket and clasped the first pair to the table leg.

                “John!” Lestrade shouted again, his voice shrill this time. “The fire crew will be here any minute, we have to get out of here!”

                John continued to pay him no attention as Carruthers moaned pathetically from the floor, on his back with his arms stretched over his head. “Don’t,” he sobbed, as John came closer with the gun. “Please, please don’t.”

                John stood over him and cocked his head, as if listening intently. “How many times have you heard those same words?” he asked, in mock wonderment. “And how many times,” John continued, “did you keep on anyway?”

                Carruthers ignored him and kept pleading.

                John sniffed and tucked the gun into the back of his trousers, then moved to squat over the rapists’ mutilated kneecaps. He stuck his hand in his jacket and pulled out a pocket knife. “I imagine you’re in quite a bit of pain right now,” he remarked, calmly, flicking the blade open and using the tip of it to point down at Carruthers’ knees. Carruthers moaned incoherently, and John nodded. “Quite a bit,” he echoed. He paused then, staring at the torn flesh below him, and twisted his head to catch Carruthers’ eye, making sure he was paying attention. “That, down there? That’s nothing.” John shook his head, to prove that it was so. “Nah, that’s nothing compared to what I’m about to do.”

                He leaned in closer. “I’m going to take this knife,” he murmured, showing it to him, flipping it back and forth, “and I’m going to cut off your miserable, disgusting prick.”

                Carruthers choked out a fresh wave of sobs, moaning the word “ _No_.”   

                “Oh, no no no no, I’m not done,” John told him, evenly. “No, you see, after I sever your cock from the rest of your body, and you begin bleeding out, I’m going to take that dying knob of flesh,” he held an invisible version of it in his hand, “and shove it down your fucking throat, until you can’t breathe anymore.”

                Lestrade’s protests were drowned out by Carruthers’ screams as John wrenched down his trousers and pants and grabbed his penis with his free hand, stretching it up as far as he could. Carruthers strained against the handcuffs, banging them on the table, flinging himself about in fear and protest. “Shhhh,” John said to him, digging a knee into his belly to keep him from moving. “I know what I’m doing. I’m a doctor.”

                And then, with one swift motion, he sliced the rapist’s prick off his body.

                “John!” Lestrade bellowed, and fled back to the door, throwing his whole body against it. Nothing. He backed up to the back wall, ran into the door with his full force—and finally stumbled through, just in time to see John’s arm halfway down Carruthers’ throat. “John!” Lestrade fell on him and pulled him back. “Let’s go, let’s _go!_ ”

                “I’m not done!” John roared in a blinding rage, trying to fight him off. “I’m not bloody _finished_ with him, yet!”

                Carruthers’ eyes bugged out, his body convulsing as he choked.

                Lestrade punched John in the face and grabbed his shoulders before he fell backwards. “JOHN! _Think_ , John! You can’t go to prison! You have a wife, a daughter, _Sherlock_ —“

                John blinked up at him, and his eyes grew very round.

                “Let’s _go!_ ”

                The two men flew out both doors and rushed down the hallway, around to the back of the building where John had initially entered. They spilled out into the alleyway, Lestrade turning to catch the door before it banged closed. John paused in the middle of the street, his breath rapidly expanding and contracting his blood-spattered chest. “Greg—“

                “ _The gun!”_ Lestrade interrupted, putting out his hand. John stared down at it. “Jesus _Christ_ , give me the bloody _gun_ , John!”

                John pulled it out of his waistband and slapped it in his hand.

                “And the knife!”

                John gave him that, too.

                “Now, _GO_!”

                With one last look, John nodded and fled the scene.

***

                In the midst of John’s retreating footsteps, Lestrade looked both ways before stepping back inside the door. He stood in the center of the hall, the gun and knife in his hands, calming his breathing.

                The firemen would be in any second. He hadn’t been able to help John kill Carruthers and escape and turn the cameras back on with enough time to exit the building for roll-call, as was their original plan. There was no time for roll-call, now. Lestrade slipped the knife into his pocket and then carefully wiped the gun on his shirt, rubbing off all traces of John’s fingerprints. Then, he hurried back down the hall to the interrogation room.

                Carruthers’ body lay shivering in a pool of blood, his face a sickly, pale-blue color, eyes wide open and bloodshot. Lestrade stared at him for a moment. Then, he raised the gun. “I should have shot you when I had the chance,” he murmured, echoing his earlier words to John. He cocked the weapon. “I should have blown your brains out, like I did your bitch wife.” He squeezed the trigger.

                _BANG!_

                Carruthers’ skull jolted as a bullet passed through it, and a small trickle of blood seeped from the wound. Lestrade stuffed the gun in his waistband, as John had, then dug the knife out of his pocket again. He wiped the hilt on his shirt and gripped it firmly in his hand, making sure his fingertips touched the surface.

                “That’ll do,” he said.

                Just then, two firemen burst into the room with Sergeant Donovan, the door swinging wide and banging on the back of the wall. They all three halted in the frame, gaping at the corpse on the ground and Lestrade standing over it with a pocket knife in his hand.

                “ _Greg?_ ” Donovan gasped.

                The Detective Inspector held his mouth in a tight, thin line, and inclined his head. “Sergeant,” he greeted, in return.


	7. Indebted

                _Home._

                “Home” was a place that John, for most of his life, hadn’t associated with anything good. “Home” as a child meant the house he lived at with his alcoholic parents and ill-tempered, destructive, eventually-to-be-alcoholic herself older sister. “Home” in the military was an empty flat in London that, unlike war, couldn’t offer a sufficient distraction from the demons he’d garnered in his childhood. “Home” two days ago was a place that he shared with his wife and daughter, in a life that he didn’t feel he deserved, nor really even knew if he wanted, anymore.

                The only time John had ever felt at home was the few short years he’d spent living with Sherlock Holmes.

                There was some kind of relief, in all this mess, with the kidnapping and rape and suicide and torture and revenge and now his wife kicking him out of the house. The relief was that John could come home, again. _At least I have that_ , John said to himself as he washed in the shower. _At least I’m back home._

                Thirty minutes earlier, John had burst through the door of 221B, eyes wild and chest heaving beneath a heavy spatter of blood. Sherlock and Mary and the baby on her hip had turned away from the telly to take in the sight, still in shock from the news report that had just popped up: “ _Suspected kidnapper found dead at Scotland Yard_.”

                They all three stared at him while the television continued to blare. _“…and Carruthers himself was found dead, just an hour ago, at Scotland Yard. Sources say that Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade is being held as a possible suspect.”_

                “What did you _do?_ ” Mary breathed.

                John looked at the telly, where Sally Donovan was telling the reporters that she had “No comment.”

                “I need the shower,” he said, and turned on his heel to start down the hall.

                “John!” Mary rushed down the hall after him, but John closed and locked the bathroom door before she got there. “John!” she yelled, pounding on it with her one free hand.

                Sherlock winced as he got up from the sofa. He slowly shuffled to the door, grabbed the handle, turned it, and stepped through easily. Mary blinked and pushed past him, reaching over to grasp the folds of the shower curtain and throw it back.

                “Hey!” John yelped, turning the front of his body toward the wall. “What the hell?”

                “Took the words right from my mouth!” Mary growled behind him. “What the hell did you do?”

                “Get out! Jesus, I thought I _locked_ that door—“

                “It doesn’t lock,” Sherlock explained, tiredly. “It’s never locked.”

                John glanced at him suspiciously over his shoulder. “Wait, even—even when I lived here?”

                Mary groaned in frustration and reached over to shut off the tap.

                “Hey!” John screeched again.

                Anna began to cry in Mary’s arms, and she shifted her to the other hip. “Tell me, John. Tell me what you did.”

                John glanced back at them again, shivering with the sudden lack of hot water. The dried blood had smeared into rusty-orange lines down his face and chest.

                “You don’t have to look so disgusted,” John muttered, grabbing the edge of the shower curtain to cover his privates. “The bastard got what he deserved.”

                Tears sprang into Mary’s eyes. “What did you _do?_ ” she whispered, again.

                Anna wailed louder. “Oh, get her out of here!” John barked from the tub. “Why are you even here? What are you—“

                “I came to find _you_ , you idiot. You rushed off this morning, and you didn’t call me… I had no bloody clue what was going on!” She’d started to tremble.

                John swallowed. “Can we please talk about this after I’ve cleaned up?”

                Mary stared at him for a moment, in disbelief. She glanced at his bloodied clothes on the floor. “They said he was mutilated,” she murmured, almost to herself.

                “Mary…” Sherlock gave her a warning look. She gazed up at him, then back at John.

                “Somebody better tell me what the fuck is going on.”

                John turned to Sherlock. “I don’t care what you do or don’t explain,” he spat, “so long as you tell her that Carruthers deserved what he got. Worse. He deserved even _worse_ , and if I’d had a bit more time, I would have _done_ worse.”

                Now Sherlock was staring in disbelief.

                “Oh, don’t bloody look at me like that!” John moved to turn the tap back on, no longer caring about his nakedness. “Obviously Lestrade agreed with me, or he wouldn’t have helped.” The warm water hissed out of the shower again, but his shivering didn’t dissipate. “And for the record, Sherlock, you should agree too. You’re all _about_ taking justice into your own hands.”

                Sherlock blinked at him.

                “What if they catch you, John?” Mary asked him, quietly. “What if you go to prison? What if you… you leave us…” She started to cry. “You never _think_ about us.” She looked at their daughter in her arms, large, fat tears still running down her poor, confused face. “You never, ever do.”

                “Stoppit,” John snapped. “Just fucking stoppit, with the fucking guilt trips and the nagging and the bloody ‘You don’t care!’ nonsense, because you _know_ it’s complete shite—“

                “You know what?” Mary’s voice was bitter through her tears. “I don’t want you to come home tonight. I don’t want you in my house, around my daughter, knowing that you are capable of torturing another human being.”

                “Oh for the love of—what do you think, Mary? You think I’m going to hurt Anna? Or you? What the fuck is the _matter_ with you? And seriously, _you_? Miss ‘Ex-assassin?’ Who are _you_ to talk?”

                Anna began to shriek. “Let me take her,” Sherlock offered weakly, stepping toward them and holding out his hands.

                “No,” Mary choked. “We’re leaving, we’re gone. You can have him.” She shot a scathing glare in John’s direction. “Good fucking luck.”

                And with that, she stormed out of the flat.

                After Mary had left, Sherlock had continued to stand helplessly in the middle of the bathroom, staring out the empty door. In his periphery, John saw Sherlock’s eyes fall to the pile of clothes next to the tub, then move up to John. John, for his part, had ignored the gaze, instead standing with his head in the shower spray, staring far, far off into the space beyond.

                Sherlock eventually left and John closed the curtain again, turning up the heat of the water and shutting his eyes. He stood like that for a long while, just letting the water run over his head and down his shoulders, before finally picking up the soap and washing the residue of the blood from his skin.

_At least I’m back home._

                When he was finished, he stepped out of the tub and found that Sherlock had laid out some clothes for him. It was only an old t-shirt and pajama bottoms, but something about the gesture brought a sting of tears to John’s eyes. He fumbled with them and dressed through blurry vision before taking a deep breath and exiting the loo.

                Sherlock was laying on the couch again, his head resting on a cushion and his eyes staring intently down the hall and into John’s. He didn’t say anything, but John could tell he wanted to talk. John clenched his teeth together and turned to the kitchen instead. He _didn’t_ want to talk.

                John filled up the kettle and turned it on, then stood over it and watched it as it began to heat the water inside. The rumbling and rushing of it, the building up to something tumultuous, mirrored John’s feelings at the moment. He could feel Sherlock staring at the back of his head, he could feel the emotions of the past day churning and gathering momentum, and he knew it was all going to come out either in anger or in tears, and he’d have to decide soon which one he wanted it to be. “Neither” was what he really wanted… but that was impossible at this point.

                The kettle began to whistle, and John let out a strangled sob. “Sherlock, I—“

                But suddenly a hand grabbed his arm, flipped him around, and pulled him into a hug. It was so uncharacteristic of Sherlock that John’s tears tried up in a moment, in favor of shock and awe. He awkwardly bent his elbows and patted Sherlock’s sides. “Sherlock…” John tried, but there was nothing he could find to say. So he just let Sherlock hug him, and waited for something else to happen.

                As it turned out, that “something else” was Sherlock’s murmuring into his ear that he would never ask what happened at Scotland Yard. The only thing he wanted to know was if Lestrade had any culpability, and if John knew of some way that they could help him get off. “I owe him my life,” Sherlock said, quietly. “Both of you. I owe you for phoning him, and him for rescuing me.”

                John pressed backwards and Sherlock let him go. They stared at each other, Sherlock’s expression one of expectancy, John’s one of exhaustion. “What happened,” John started, “was that Lestrade and I couldn’t bear to see a man like that breathe freely one second longer.”

                Sherlock nodded.

                “The… the way I…” John stumbled over the words. “’Torture’ doesn’t seem like the right way to describe it, but I suppose… I wanted him to hurt, because he’d made you hurt.” John’s anger flared. “I’d do it again. I’d do it to anyone who hurt you.”

                Sherlock nodded again.

                John sighed. “I don’t know… I figured Lestrade had a plan. To cover it up, after. And I was so… swept along that after he pushed me into the alley, I just left.” John realized that this information wasn’t going to make a whole lot of sense, because he hadn’t actually given Sherlock any details on their plan—but Sherlock was intelligent enough to fill in the gaps. He probably already had, from what he’d seen on the news report and from his general methods of deduction.

                John sighed again, realizing how bleak the situation looked for the Detective Inspector. “Sherlock, _he_ ordered the interrogation. He put his name down as the interrogator. He turned off the cameras. He told me the code to the evidence room. He took both my weapons when I left. If there was any chance of us being caught, nothing would have been tied to me...” John’s eyebrows relaxed in realization. “My God, that _was_ his plan. Not to get away with it… but to take the blame.”

                Sherlock was silent for a long while, staring at John’s face. “Alright,” he said finally. “I need to go out for a bit.”

                John nodded. “Okay, yeah, just… let me pop off to get some new clothes, and—“

                Sherlock shook his head. “No, you’re staying here.”

                John blinked at him. “What?”

                “If Lestrade went through all of this effort to make sure you weren’t tied to the crime… then it’s our duty to make sure he didn’t do it for nothing.” Sherlock turned and went to get his overcoat. “Which means that you will remain here, out of sight, until I sort this out.”

                “But—“ John began to protest.

                “Please… do this for me,” Sherlock said, wrapping his scarf round his neck and sticking an arm through his coat. He turned to reach back for the other arm, grimacing in pain. John started forward and helped to ease it onto Sherlock’s shoulder.

                “You shouldn’t be going out,” John said, quietly.

                Sherlock adjusted the front of the coat over his torso. “I’m not going anywhere… _physically_ taxing.”

                John raised his eyebrows.

                The other man twisted his lips into a wry smile. “I’m going to see my brother."


	8. Reasoned

                “There’s nothing I can do.”

                Sherlock’s stomach dropped at the words, even though he’d known, coming in, that that would be his brother’s answer.

                “Well, perhaps I should amend that statement,” Mycroft continued, rotating back and forth in his swivel chair with his fingers folded under his chin. “I can protect John, to an extent—filter out any security footage that places him near the scene, that kind of thing—but Gregory Lestrade…” he trailed off, and sighed.

                “You were able to get me off, when I shot Magnussen,” Sherlock protested.

                Mycroft stopped moving and gazed at him, as if he could see directly through his petulance. “You know as well as I do the reason for that.” He sat back and picked at his fingernails, expanding on it anyway. “ _Your_ name never went to the press.”

                It was true. Mycroft had every single person at the scene paid off and sworn to secrecy the moment after his helicopter touched the ground. Magnussen’s death became a “random act of violence,” a break-in or some such, and no one even got a hold of the _real_ story—which allowed Mycroft to settle the matter internally, behind the government’s closed doors. But Lestrade’s case was already hitting international news, and Mycroft deemed it too dangerous to cover up, now.

                “If I became involved at this juncture, something wouldn’t seem right to some over-enthusiastic reporter, and the ruse might be exposed; at which point the British Government would have no qualms giving me over to the dogs,” Mycroft told him, as a matter of fact. “It is the nature of the intelligence world—sacrifice one for the good of the whole.”

                “If it were me, though,” Sherlock countered. “If it were me, held as suspect, you would still try.”

                Mycroft folded his hands in his lap. “Fortunately for me, that is not the situation.”

                Sherlock’s anger flared. “What is the point of you, exactly?” he spat, getting out of his chair.

                “There’s no ‘point’ to it at all; we’re family, Sherlock. Therefore, I would risk my wellbeing to protect you, but I will not for Lestrade.”

                Sherlock stopped and stared at him, as if struck by a thought.

                Mycroft’s eyes widened. “Whatever you are thinking of doing, don’t.”

                Sherlock smirked. “I don’t know what you mean, dear brother.” He turned to leave.

                Mycroft was up out of his chair in a flash, moving faster than Sherlock would have given him credit for. He reached out to grab Sherlock by the wrist, intent on keeping him in the room—but Sherlock yelped in pain, and his brother snapped his hand back as if he’d touched a snake. Sherlock clutched his ligatured wrist in his other hand trying to rub away the sting.

                “You’ve been through enough, Sherlock,” Mycroft said, quietly, staring down at the wrist. “I don’t often beg, but I’m begging you now: please, don’t put yourself in any more danger. Please. For your own sake… and for mine.”

                Sherlock scowled and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “And what about Lestrade’s sake?” he retorted. “What about _him?_ ”

                Mycroft pressed his fingers onto his eyes, clearly frustrated by Sherlock’s stubbornness. “He shot a man in cold blood. He’s a police officer. He knew the consequences.”

                “But he was _helping_ —“

                Mycroft held up a hand. “He wasn’t helping anybody, least of all John Watson. John decided that he was above the law, that he could take justice into his own hands… The helpful thing to do would have been to stop him.”

                “Would you have?” Sherlock challenged. “Would you, Mycroft? After what Carruthers did?”

                Mycroft considered him for a moment, then gave him one of his typical thin-lipped smiles. “If it had been me,” he said, “I would have been smarter about it.”

                Sherlock didn’t reply.

                “Tell me something, Sherlock,” Mycroft asked, sitting on the edge of his desk and crossing his ankles. “Do you approve of what they did? Do you support it?”

                Sherlock stared at his brother. “When a criminal is outside the reach of the law,” he began, “then yes. I believe, as you put it, in ‘sacrificing one for the good of the whole.’ In this case, sacrificing oneself to end the cycle of violence.”

                “Sacrifice?” Mycroft echoed. “Does that involve asphyxiating one with one’s own genitals?”

                Sherlock clenched his jaw.

                The other man shook his head. “Sherlock, do not pretend you are above what they did. Do not pretend that there is some ‘sacrifice for the greater good’ that drives you to do _anything_. The reason you shot Charles Augustus Magnussen was the same reason that John and Lestrade killed Carruthers; it wasn’t to protect future victims, it was _revenge_ , pure and simple. These were crimes of passion, not selfless sacrifice.” He smirked. “It just so happens that John’s passion took the form of mutilation and torture, where yours was a simple shot to the head.”

                Sherlock gave Mycroft a scathing look. “I am not _completely_ given over to sentiment. Let the punishment fit the crime, Mycroft; a simple shot to the head was quite adequate for a serial blackmailer. Although,” he added at a murmur, “I did rather have the urge to hold Magnussen down and flick _his_ face before I blew out his brains.”

                Mycroft gave him that forced, doting smile that he always did in lieu of actual laughter. And then his smile grew sour. “Promise me, Sherlock,” he said, seriously. “Promise me you won’t make any more foolish decisions.”

                “Believe me,” Sherlock said, folding his coat more tightly around himself and stepping towards the door. “I’ve had my absolute fill of foolishness.”

***

                Lestrade shuffled out to the waiting room, his gaunt face brightening a bit as he saw Sherlock on the other side of the plexiglas. He lowered himself into the chair opposite and picked up the phone. Sherlock did likewise.

                “Hey, mate,” Lestrade greeted, tiredly. “Nice to see you out and about.”

                Sherlock watched him through his cool-colored eyes. “I’m going to give my statement,” he said, abruptly.

                Lestrade blinked. “What?”

                “I’m going to give my statement to the police,” Sherlock tried again. “About what happened at the Carruthers’.”

                The Detective Inspector furrowed his brow and considered the decision.

                “No,” he replied, simply.

                Now it was Sherlock’s turn to blink. “No? What do you mean, ‘no’?”

                Lestrade thumbed the edge of the glass where it met the countertop. “Sherlock, why didn’t you do it before? Give the statement, I mean? Would have saved us a hell of a lot of trouble, from the beginning, you know.”

                To Lestrade’s surprise, Sherlock hung his head in shame. “If the public found out that I… that I made such a careless error…” he took in a shaky breath. “No one would come to me anymore. With crimes to solve. No one would trust me anymore. _I_ don’t even trust…” He faded off. “But that was selfish of me. I should have told the police everything that happened, and dealt with the consequences later.”

                Lestrade sat thoughtfully for a moment. “You know, John said something quite interesting to me earlier. He asked me if I knew how many crimes you’d prevented and how many lives you’d saved, doing what you do. We came to the conclusion that the amount is indeterminable… because it’s too high to count.” Sherlock took a breath to interject, but Lestrade cut him off. “Do you honestly believe people would stop trusting you with their mysteries if they knew what happened?”

                Sherlock became uncharacteristically emotional. “Yes,” he said, quietly. “And I can’t say they wouldn’t be right.”

                “Ah, Sherlock,” Lestrade began, sitting back in the uncomfortable plastic chair. “Even on your worst day, you are still a better bloody detective than all the pros in England put together. You _knew_ that the Carruthers had something to do with Violet’s disappearance. You knew that, right off. Now, maybe it was reckless of you to go over there alone,” he scolded, gently, “but honestly, Sherlock? It’s no more reckless than any other bloody thing you’ve done. You’ve just been abnormally lucky up to this point—you could have been injured or killed a thousand other times, a thousand other ways, with the kind of shite you pull. Hell, I remember you _allowing_ yourself to be kidnapped and tied up for a week just to make friends with the bloke who did it and get him to confess to his other crimes.” Lestrade chuckled and shook his head. “It was some kind of reverse… whaddya call it?”

                “Stockholm Syndrome,” Sherlock supplemented, his eyes lit up with the memory.

                “Yeah, that. I remember thinking you were batshite insane, and the luckiest bastard I’d ever known.” Lestrade gazed at him. “But your luck ran out, Sherlock. It was bound to happen, sooner or later.”

                Sherlock swallowed. “What if that ‘recklessness,’ as you call it, was what made me great? What if I can’t work any cases, anymore, because I’m just too… afraid?”

                Lestrade smiled, knowingly. “Oh Sherlock, you’re still the smartest damn man in the country. Maybe even the world. I’m sure you’ll find a way to keep solving crimes and step up the game on personal safety. Get a little creative, will you?”

                Sherlock’s mouth flickered up.

                “One minute,” the guard behind them called.

                “Look,” Lestrade continued, “at this point the only thing your statement could help with is soliciting sympathy from the jury. You know, make them want to kill the bastard as much as I did. But my lawyer can do that perfectly well by himself, if he’s halfway decent. There’s enough circumstantial evidence to get anyone with a heart on my side. And like I said… how I finally come out of this is not nearly as important as how _you_ do. You’re the one saving lives, out there. I’m the one who was going to let the Carruthers walk in the first place, God help me.”

                Sherlock sighed and nodded reluctantly at the countertop.

                “All right,” the guard told them. “Wrap it up.”

                “Yeah, okay.” Lestrade turned back to say goodbye, when his face suddenly clouded. “Sherlock, before I go, there is something…”

                Sherlock’s head snapped up.

                “Well, just, take care of John, will you? I think this thing sort of… destroyed him.” Lestrade ran a hand through his hair in distress. “The way he tortured… it was fucked up, Sherlock. I mean, for John. It was really fucked up.”

                “I know,” Sherlock said, heavily. “I’ll sort him out.”

                Lestrade inclined his head curtly, and hung up the phone. He got out of the chair and was just about to leave when he heard Sherlock bang on the glass. He turned back and saw the consulting detective mouth the words “Thank you,” through the transparent divide.

                “Anytime,” Lestrade shouted, and gave him a small smile before he was led off back to his cell.


	9. Comforted

_*Several weeks later*_

                Sherlock strode through the front door and sighed. John was sitting at the kitchen table, both hands wrapped around a cold cup of tea, staring at him from haggard, hooded eyes. “You didn’t sleep again,” Sherlock observed. It was not a difficult deduction.

                John’s nose twitched and he sniffed, looking into the bottom of his cup. “Yeah, you know,” he replied, vaguely.

                “I texted you.” Sherlock pulled out his mobile to review the messages. “Every hour.”

                John peered over and tapped his phone, on the table next to his hands. “Yep, you did. ‘ _Still alive. SH_.’”

                “Was that not sufficient?”

                John shook his head, willing away whatever his initial response had been to that question. “No, that was… it’s fine. Thanks a ton.”

                “I haven’t done anything dangerous, you know,” Sherlock told him, annoyed. “I was only inspecting the coffee shop. Crowded, public place. Well-lit. Safe. Just like I promised.” There was an edge to Sherlock’s voice, one he put there on purpose. He didn’t want John to know just how easy it had been for him to agree to that promise, or how relieved he’d felt when John asked him to make it.

                “You were gone an awfully long time for a simple coffee shop inspection.”

                Sherlock hesitated. “I did take a slight detour, after.”

                “Oh, did you, then?” John clenched his jaw in frustration.

                “I went to see Lestrade, again.”

                The other man’s anger gave way to curiosity. “You did? How is he?”

                “He’s fatigued, but in good spirits. The hearing went well, so he’s optimistic.” Sherlock searched John’s face, considering whether or not to proceed. “He asked me how you were.”

                “Yeah? And what did you tell him? That I’m having a brilliant time, back at 221B, free as a bird and solving crimes with my best mate?”

                The sarcasm was so strong, Sherlock felt it like a punch in the stomach. “No,” he retorted, his voice gone sour. “I told him you were miserable.”

                John gazed at him, a twisted smile on his lips. “The truth, then?”

                Mary had been quite serious about John not coming home, and so Sherlock had got his wish—for him to move back to Baker Street. But it wasn’t anything like the fantasy Sherlock had dreamed of; John had been absolutely intolerable, driven to near lunacy at the guilt he felt for leaving Lestrade at the Yard that day. At first John had taken to drinking the anguish away, and then, when Sherlock finally outlawed it, he’d taken to crying.

                “I hate this, Sherlock,” he’d sobbed, his head in his hands. “I hate not being able to do anything. I hate that I just assumed that he would take care of things... how I just left him… I hate that he covered this up for me, and didn’t tell me he was going to do it. I hate it. I should have some of the blame. I should be in jail, with him.” And so on and so forth. And Sherlock had run out of sympathetic responses to give him.

                Now, John suddenly stood and looked Sherlock square in the eye. “I’m going to turn myself in.”

 _Dear God, the lunacy has finally arrived._ “John—“

                “There’s nothing left for me, Sherlock. My wife doesn’t want me. You go out, alone, don’t need my help like you used to.” John drew in a deep breath. “I can’t live with myself, knowing that Greg is being punished for something that _I_ talked him into doing. He shouldn’t be taking all the blame, Sherlock. He shouldn’t be taking _any_.”

                Sherlock stared at John for a long while. “Sleep on it,” he finally suggested. “Sleep on it, before you make a decision.”

***

                John hadn’t thought he’d fallen asleep yet, when he groggily awoke to the sound of moaning coming from the direction of Sherlock’s bedroom. He stumbled down the stairs and around the corner, knocking rapidly on the bedroom door before he opened it.

                He found Sherlock thrashing around in his covers, mumbling “ _No”_ again and again. “Sherlock?” he called, and squinted at him in the darkness.

                “No,” Sherlock cried again, instead of responding to John’s voice.

                _Nightmare._

                John felt a shot of adrenaline. He switched on the lamp and knelt with one knee on Sherlock’s bed, grabbing his best friend to steady the flailing. “Sherlock—Sherlock, wake up—“ he instructed, firmly, and leaned in with all his weight to restrain the sleeping man. “Sherlock, it’s okay, it’s—“

                Sherlock’s eyes popped open, ridden with fear and anguish. “John—“ he gasped, bringing a hand up to clutch John’s t-shirt. “John—“

                “Shhh, it’s alright,” John soothed. “It was just a dream.”

                Sherlock burst into tears.

                “Shhh,” John said again, his heart twisting in pain at the sight. “It’s okay.” Sherlock sat up, fingers still grasping the fabric of John’s shirt, and let his head fall into John’s shoulder. John put both arms round his back, pulling him into a sturdy embrace.

                “I’m sorry,” Sherlock wailed, his voice muffled. “It was… so real…”

                “I know,” John said, gently rubbing his back. “I know, but it was a dream. It wasn’t real. You’re safe, now.”

                Sherlock’s sobs doubled.

                John felt his own eyes begin to sting with tears. He knew what it was, to have a nightmare like that. He knew what it meant. It meant subconscious pain, fear, a haunting of traumatic events—it meant PTSD, sleep-aids, therapy. It had been nearly a month, with no worrisome signs, and John had marveled that they’d managed to avoid any of it. _Well_ , John thought. _I celebrated too soon_. “Shhh,” he whispered once more, slowly beginning to rock back and forth. He rested his cheek against the side of Sherlock’s head. “You’re alright. You’re going to be alright.”

                “John,” Sherlock choked out, weakly, between sobs. “John…”

                “I’m here,” John answered. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

                “Promise me,” Sherlock whispered. “Promise me. I need you.”

                John felt a sob push up through his throat, and a sort of tenderness that he hadn’t felt since the day the thing had happened. “I promise, Sherlock.”

                Sherlock turned his face inward, burying it in the crook of John’s neck. John could feel his tears slipping down, wetting the collar of his shirt. On some sort of instinct, he turned his face and planted a kiss in Sherlock’s hair.

                John froze as he realized what he’d done. He supposed it was a familiar gesture because of his daughter, because he kissed _her_ head when _she_ cried on his shoulder… yet, Sherlock hadn’t seemed bothered by it. In fact, he tightened his grip on John’s shirt in response.

                So John did it again. And again. And he whispered, “Shhh,” and continued to rock, and did it again. And each repetition of it fueled the next one, and in some bizarre way it felt _right_. And Sherlock shifted his face up towards John’s, and John kissed his forehead, his temple, his tear-soaked cheek, his lips.

                They broke apart after a few seconds, their foreheads still resting together. Then John began to cry, too. “This is fucked up,” he whispered. “Everything. This is all so fucked up.”

                Sherlock let out a volatile breath. “I know.”

                John kissed him, again.

                They ended up falling asleep, not long after, John’s arm drawn tightly around Sherlock’s back, Sherlock’s curly head resting beneath John’s chin. _At least we still have each other_ John though, as he drifted off into slumber. _As long as we have each other, we’ll be alright._

                He decided he wouldn’t turn himself in.


	10. Inspired

                Sherlock awoke in the morning with John’s smelly overnight breath in his face. He slowly shifted away from it and out of bed, careful not to disturb the other man’s slumber. He needed to think, to plan, and couldn’t do it with John there next to him, interrupting his thoughts with sour exhales.

                Sherlock slipped on his dressing gown and tiptoed out into the kitchen. He took a deep breath and looked around, imagining how John would wake up and come out here later, make some tea, maybe open up the newspaper. That was going to happen today, and every other day for the rest of their lives, if Sherlock could help it.

                And, oh, was he ever helping it.

                The dream had been inspired, if he did say so himself. It had been too easy; if John had actually thought about it, even a little, he’d have known that Sherlock was faking. His skin wasn’t covered in nearly enough perspiration for a night terror. His voice should have been much less intelligible. And, though Sherlock had shown John an extremely vulnerable side of himself those few weeks ago (he shuddered at the memory), John should have known that he would not be eager to repeat it. Even if Sherlock had _actually_ had a night terror, he would not have admitted it upon waking. He would certainly not have cried on John’s shoulder. Or let John kiss him.

                But he did. And he would, again, every night, even, if it meant John would stay.

                Sherlock was not in the habit of needing people, but he needed John, far more than he thought he had. He hadn’t realized it until this whole… ordeal. Lestrade had been right, Sherlock _was_ reckless, and needed to be, to solve crimes. But he couldn’t do that, not alone, not with the fear of being injured or killed drumming about in his head.

                Sherlock realized that he’d been going about this all the wrong way. He’d been pretending to be okay, going out by himself, when he really wasn’t. He’d been pretending that everything was back to normal. He’d thought that maybe if he pretended long enough, things would get there, eventually. But that was clearly not happening. He was still afraid, and John was still beside himself with guilt, now apparently ready to go to prison in an attempt to ease his tormented soul.

                But then, John had said something yesterday that ignited a spark of epiphany in Sherlock’s brain: “ _You go out, alone, don’t need my help, like you used to_.” Suddenly, Sherlock knew that it wasn’t luck that had kept him safe in his recklessness all those years, as Lestrade had postulated; no, it was John Watson who had done that. Sherlock didn’t need to choose safer crimes to solve, he didn’t need to be more careful—what he needed was to make sure that John went with him on every case, was by his side, to protect him in case things went awry. Like he’d always done. If Sherlock had that, he would have nothing at all to fear.

                And by letting John save him, Sherlock would help John, too. Because, contrary to what he’d believed since they’d first met, John did not have an obsession with danger. He did not thrive on looking death in the eye and living to fight another day. No, what John thrived on was not danger; it was _saving_ people from it. He was a natural guardian. He’d been a military doctor, for Christ’s sake, saving people’s lives in the most dangerous situation of all: on the battlefield. There was nothing John loved more than being the hero. And Sherlock, in resuming his recklessness, would give John his fill of opportunities to be exactly that.

_Elegant,_ Sherlock thought, as he settled down in his chair and waited for John to emerge from the bedroom. _As long as we have each other, we’ll be alright._

                All he had to do now was keep them together.

_The End._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, this one was difficult to get through, especially the last few chapters... I wasn't sure how to wrap everything up, and I'm still not sure if I'm completely satisfied with the ending. Feedback is appreciated! Thank you for reading :)


End file.
